Many people believe that the first Indians who arrived in Fiji came under the indentured system or Girmit, however they are mistaken.
The Fiji Times report says that the forefathers who arrived in Fiji on May 14, 1879, under the indentured system were not the first Indians to set foot on this land.
Records revealed that Indians set foot in Fiji about 70 years before the arrival of the first group of indentured labourers from India.
It was during the sandalwood trading era, which saw ships from various countries coming to Fiji to trade.
According to the Fiji Museum’s 1984’s edition of its quarterly journal, the Domodomo — Fiji’s first Indian settlers were the lascars.
One of the lascars was reported to have hired himself out to various chiefs as a mercenary during the inter-tribal wars in the early 1800s.
Lascars are part-Portuguese Indian sailors drawn from seafaring communities along the Malabar Coast, which is a long and narrow coastline on the south-western shoreline of the mainland Indian subcontinent.
Fergus Clunie in his article “Fiji first Indians settlers” in the Domodomo wrote ‘Indeed these forgotten Indians, whose unwitting descendants are no doubt submerged within today’s Indigenous Fijian population, were the among the earliest foreigners to jump ship in Fiji during the sandalwood trading boom of the early 1800s.”
They maybe our friends, neighbours, workmates, family members or even someone we met on a daily basis like the taxidriver, busdriver or even the market vendor.
Today, 137 years later, we remember the Girmitiyas — their life, struggle and torture in Fiji.
These stories have been deliberately hidden from the world and from the books of history.
In Fiji’s primary and secondary schools, we learnt about early history of indigenous Fijians,
We also learnt about the prowess and courage of various European explorers and seamen, the history of the British Royal Family, contributions of the British and Commonwealth in developing the earth, and about the glory of the white men.
However, as far as Fiji’s history is concerned, there is almost no acknowledgment of the contributions of the Girmitiya to its development
It is because of this legacy that today, over 90 per cent of Fiji’s students go to non-government schools and it is because of such vision that today’s third and fourth generation of Girmitiya children are sought after professionals and skilled people in Fiji, New Zealand, Canada, USA and Australia and other parts of the world. But how have we repaid this debt?
